Network storage services allow users to store their content files on network servers and access the content files from other computer devices through a computer network. Copies of the content files are typically stored locally on the user's computing devices and synchronized with the content files on a server. In one example, a user sets up synchronization for a folder so that sub-folders and content files in the folder are stored on, and synchronized across, multiple devices (e.g., on her desktop at work, on her tablet at home, on her mobile phone, and on a server maintained by the network storage service).
Users are able to customize the synchronization on a particular device to only synchronize particular sub-folders and files. Doing so can be useful to avoid unnecessarily tying up storage on a computing device for content files that are not used on the computing device. For example, where a user account includes a sub-folder with work-related content files and a sub-folder with personal content files, the user may configure the synchronization on the desktop she uses at work to only include the sub-folder of work-related content files. The synchronization selections of specific sub-folders and files are specific to the particular computing device. To use the same synchronization selections on another computing device, the selections must be recreated and re-implemented on the other computing device. Moreover, when a computing device is lost, broken, or replaced, the synchronization selections on that device are lost. The user must then repeat the process of determining which data to synchronize on the replacement device and make the synchronization selections again.